Facebook Publishing Users’ Private Location Data

Many Facebook users have noticed the recent change where some posts are now displaying the location of the user who submitted the post. This map appears as a hyperlinked location tag at the end of a wall post after the “Like . . .” and “Date.” For example, if you posted last night from your San Francisco home, your post might end with “Yesterday at 9:18pm near San Francisco.” This change to Facebook’s Timeline feature has raised concerns among many users who wish to keep their location private.

Because the new map feature is part of Facebook’s Timeline that Facebook users are now required to use, various users have posted suggestions on the forum regarding solutions for maintaining privacy in light of the new map feature.

A Monday thread on Facebook’s Community Forum focused on how to remove both the links to the map and location tags on the map itself. This Facebook forum thread described how users, who are wishing to keep their posting location unknown, can remove a link to the map from the front of their Timeline. It also noted that this same technique can be used to remove other unwanted links from the user’s Timeline.

This forum post also pointed out that removing links to the map will not actually disable the map itself, and the map will remain active on the user’s Timeline under its own URL (facebook.com/your.username/map/). However, identifying and untagging locations that appear on the user’s map URL page will help the user further protect his or her privacy.

In order to find all posts tagged with a location, users can follow these steps: Go into the Activity Log on a user’s timeline, click the “All” button in the top right side, and select “posts with location.” Once a user knows which profile posts have location tags, he or she can then remove the tags, which will in turn remove them from the map and increase privacy protection.

Facebook users should remember that even removed location tags and map links remain part of the user’s Timeline. Do you feel that Facebook is crossing the line by choosing to post the location of its users who have decided to keep their current city and hometown private?